Valerie Pettit

The MI6 was able to recruit Oleg Gordievsky as a double agent in October 1974 while he was a KGB public relations line officer in Copenhagen. By 1982, he was posted in London and three years later was appointed resident-designate of the Soviet mission. Pettit became his MI6 case officer.^[3] He was, however, exposed by Aldrich Ames, an avaricious Soviet double agent CIA officer, in 1985.^{[citation needed]} On 28 May that year he was ordered to fly back to Moscow for a meeting with the KGB Chairman and the head of First Chief Directorate. He was subjected to interrogation and close surveillance after his arrival. Fearing for his life, Gordievsky requested emergency exfiltration.

Despite the generally-accepted notion that an escape would be impossible, Pettit drafted an operation plan that was eventually approved by then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.^[4] During this period, she was already the deputy to the head of MI6's Soviet operations section.^[5] The rescue, called "Operation Pimlico", transported Gordievsky to the Finnish border in the boot of a diplomat's car after an elaborate rendezvous in Moscow, then to the UK by way of Norway.^[4]

In the account of Gordievsky's escape in The Spy and the Traitor, Pettit was referred to as “Veronica Price”. After retirement, Pettit lived with her mother and sister in Surrey. She died on 25 March 2020 at her home in West Clandon.^{[citation needed]} After her death, the book's author Ben MacIntyre, who was able to interview her, described the spy as “one of those brisk, practical, quintessentially English women who brooks no nonsense.”^[2]